The country's second largest auto show, the Guangzhou Auto Show, is open this week. Turning around gloomy results of the past two years, manufacturers are giving impressive report cards for 2016 and their predictions of hot-ticket items for 2017.

Popstars and fanfare for new model launches and a celebration for a year of booming sales. That's beating a lackluster 2015 on so many fronts.

"Our hybrid power vehicle sales have gone up 300 percent from last year. If you compare that with 2010, when we first introduced hybrid models, sales have gone up 30-fold," said Li Hui, vice general manager of Gac-Toyota.

Industry stats predict total sales of 27 million cars by the end of this year. The biggest winner? Sport utility vehicles.

"For the 180 million cars in China, only 20 million are SUVs. There's still a long way to go before we reach the 30-percent market share predicted for SUVs. So I say the next five years will be the golden age for SUVs in this country," said Li Xueming, general manager of Hanteng Auto.

This producer says sales of SUVs more than tripled in the last ten months.
And demand is expected to go up even more, when new models are coupled with new energy as electric vehicles come into their own.

"We've been a bit more conservative in the past on what the volume (of EVs) could be. We now believe 2025, 15-25 percent of our vehicle sales could be electric," said Hubertus Troska from Daimler Board Member Responsible for China.

Volkswagen China says it will sell 1.5 million new energy vehicles, every year, by 2025.

"China is by far the fastest developing country in e-mobility and this is the basis of our NEV offensive," said Jochem Heizmann president of Volkswagen China.

Experts say it's subsidy policies that are gearing up demand. They're expected to continue in the new year. And so, the show will go on.